Monday, July 7, 2014

A man purported to be the leader of the terrorist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) Abu...5:01:00 AM

A man purported to be the leader of the
terrorist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi is seen in this frame from a video recording posted on the
Internet on July 5, 2014.

The Iraqi
government has dismissed as bogus a video that purports to show the
leader of the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
(ISIL).

Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman, Brigadier General Saad Maan, told
Reuters that the footage allegedly showing Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi at a
mosque in central Mosul, located some 400 kilometers (250 miles)
northwest of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, was “indisputably” not him.

“We have analyzed the footage...and found it is a farce,” Maan said,
adding that Iraqi government forces had recently wounded Baghdadi in an
airstrike and he had been transferred by the ISIL militants to Syria for
medical treatment.

A 21-minute video posted on social media on Saturday showed a man
clad in a long black robe and a black turban with a long graying beard
addressing people at what looked like a mosque.During the sermon, the man calls on all Muslims to obey him and urges
people to follow his call to create a “caliphate,” or what he considers
an Islamic state, in Iraq and Syria. The man says Muslims are sinners
if they do not seek this goal of establishing an “Islamic state.”Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is a nom de guerre, rather than the real name of the person who is referred to as the ISIL’s leader.

The Takfiri militant group, which has seized large swathes of Iraq
through assistance by former Iraqi army officers associated with the
defunct Ba’ath party and executed dictator, Saddam Hussein, is
bankrolled by Saudi Arabia.More than one million Iraqis have fled their homes over the past
month as the ISIL terrorists seized Mosul, Tikrit and other cities in
the northwest areas.Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has said Saudi Arabia and Qatar
are responsible for the security crisis and growing terrorism in his
country.